What Does Understanding Mathematics Mean for Teachers?

<p>This book opens up alternative ways of thinking and talking about ways in which a person can know a subject (in this case mathematics) leading to a reconsideration of what it may mean to be a <em>teacher</em> of that subject. </p><p>In a number of European languages a distinction is made in <em>ways of knowing</em> that in the English language is collapsed into the singular word know. In French for example to know in the <em>savoir</em> sense is to know things facts names how and why things work and so on whereas to know in the <em>connaître</em> sense is to know a person a place or even a thing—namely an <em>other</em>— in such a way that one is familiar with or in relationship with this other. Primarily through phenomenological reflection with a touch of empirical input this book fleshes out an image for what a person’s <em>connaître</em> knowing of mathematics might mean turning to mathematics teachers and teacher educators to help clarify this image.</p>